Michael Turton on Marcan chiasms.

A distinctly Marcan literary device?

I would like to call attention to an intriguing project on
Marcan literary structure undertaken by Michael Turton, known on
some discussion boards as Vorkosigan. His Historical
Commentary on Mark, which in my judgment would be better named
as a literary commentary on Mark, puts forward the view
that Mark wrote each pericope in his gospel as a chiasm.

The word chiasm itself derives from the shape
of the Greek letter Χ (chi);
it is used in genetics and anatomy to describe a true intersection
as implied in that shape, but in literature to describe a passage
whose structural elements proceed from the beginning of the passage
to its center, then double back on themselves from the center to the
end.

Update 10-11-2005: I have now begun posting the Marcan
chiasms in Greek.Update 10-24-2005: Michael Turton has blogged a nice response to this critique, one which
answers at least a couple of my questions and also strongly
reinforces my impression that he should probably not call these
Marcan structures chiasms anymore.

The easiest way to understand it is to see it in action. There is
a well known chiasm in Matthew 8.14b-15:

A1 [Jesus]
saw his mother-in-law lying down....

B1 ...with a fever.

C And he touched her
hand....

B2 ...and the fever left
her....

A2 ...and she rose up
and ministered to them.

Turton would call each of these lines a bracket. One of
the brackets, C, stands by itself. The other brackets are
paired, A1 with A2
and B1 with B2.
He would also, by the way, tend to use the notation A
and A', B and B', instead of my numbers.
But the idea is the same.

Note how each bracket except the middle one is mirrored on the
other side of the chiasm. The act of lying down in
A1 contrasts with the act of rising up in
A2. Likewise, the respective presence and absence
of the fever are what bind B1 and
B2 together.
The center, C, is the turning point. The passage doubles back
on itself, retracing in its route from center to finish the path
already forged from start to center.

Michael Turton contends that the entire gospel of Mark was written
in this fashion, pericope by pericope, line by line, and he illustrates
his point in his excursus
to chapter 1, in which he breaks the entire gospel down into
its constituent chiasms.

He also lists ten rules for the construction of his Marcan
chiasms, which for convenience I repeat here, though I highly
recommend you read them for yourself on his site, since most of
his rules come with examples:

The A' of the previous pericope is always the A of the next
one.

All Markan chiasms have twinned centers. Many of the centers
contain more complex ABBA, ABAB, or ABCABC structures.

Markan A brackets are almost always people shifting location.

Actions may constitute separate brackets.

Speeches, regardless of length, must be single brackets,
so long as they are one speech directed at one audience.

Speeches may be broken up if there there appears to be a
natural demarcation between two parts, when the audience has
shifted. This typically takes place when there is a shift
from an address to persons present in the narrative, to a general
saying, often signaled by a formula like "Truly I say" or
"But I tell you."

Actions plus speeches may be a bracket.

Actions plus speech followed by actions/descriptions are
never a separate bracket.

Where the text "turns back on itself" — usually by
way of explanation — a new bracket is indicated.

Where a verse involves a movement from one place to another,
positing an interval of time between, a new bracket is demanded.

The rules seem to group naturally into three groups, and it might
be profitable to take a look at each group by itself.

Pericope seams.

Rule 1: The A2 of the previous pericope is
always the A1 of the next one.Rule 3: Marcan A brackets are almost always people
shifting location.

Rules 1 and 3 fit together and consist of the observation that
Mark usually moves his narrative along by having Jesus and his
disciples change location. These scene changes, according to Turton,
are simultaneously the end of one pericope and the beginning
of another.

This observation I find quite useful. As one scans the gospel
of Mark one does indeed notice that Mark likes to keep Jesus and
the disciples moving along from location to location. Words with
the prefixes εισ- (in
or into) and εξ-
(out or from) are very common in the seams between
pericopes, as Jesus either enters or exits each locale.

I find in turn that this sense of movement dovetails with the
situation that Mark presumes for Jesus and his followers throughout
most of the gospel: They are homeless itinerants (confer
Mark 10.28). How better to string together stories about a
traveller than to mark each change of locale?

So rule 3 is, in my humble opinion, rather tight
and quite Marcan:

Markan A brackets are almost always people
shifting location.

I find rule 1 slightly less helpful:

The A' of the previous pericope is always the A of
the next one.

My problem with this rule is that it appears to mask the
fact that some of the A brackets are truly singular
(describing only one movement) while others are actually
plural (describing two or more separate movements). Take
Mark 6.45-46, for example:

Immediately he made his disciples get into the boat
and go before him to the other side, to Bethsaida, while he
dismissed the crowd. And after he had taken leave of them he went
up on the mountain to pray.

Turton groups this as one A bracket, though it contains
at least two distinct movements (first the disciples into the
boat, then Jesus up the mountain). Contrast this example with
what is perhaps a more typical seam in Mark 6.12:

So they went out and preached that men should
repent.

Only one movement in that A bracket. In most passages,
then, one can say that the A2 bracket of the chiasm
that is ending is simultaneously the A2
of the chiasm that is beginning. But there are some in which
I would most naturally separate the two A brackets,
making each pericope stand on its own instead of sharing a
common seam.

Nevertheless, this observation does not nullify the overall
force of the rule, and we might merely regard the plural
instances as less elegant transitions than the singular rather
than as wholesale exceptions to the rule.

Pericope bracketing.

Rule 4: Actions may constitute separate brackets.Rule 5: Speeches, regardless of length, must be single brackets,
so long as they are one speech directed at one audience.Rule 6: Speeches may be broken up if there there appears to be a
natural demarcation between two parts, when the audience has
shifted.Rule 7: Actions plus speeches may be a bracket.Rule 8: Actions plus speech followed by actions or descriptions
are never a separate bracket.Rule 9: Where the text turns back on itself, usually by
way of explanation, a new bracket is indicated.Rule 10: Where a verse involves a movement from one place to
another, positing an interval of time between, a new bracket is
demanded.

Rules 4-10 are bracketing guidelines: When is it permissible and
when is it impermissible to jump to the next bracket? Of these
rules, numbers 4 and 7 are worded loosely (with may, not
must), number 6 is an exception to number 5, and number 8
essentially says that any given bracket will never sandwich
speech between actions or descriptions. Number 9 tells us what
to do with explanatory material (form a new bracket), and number
10 seems a logical offshoot of number 3, except that now we are
merely moving to the next bracket within a pericope, not to the
next pericope.

These bracketing rules seem less useful to me than the rules
on the seams. I am not certain that Turton always follows them
in his chiasms, or that they always can be followed.

For example, let me draw attention for a moment to
rule 9, which says:

Where the text "turns back on itself" — usually by
way of explanation — a new bracket is indicated.

Turton helpfully includes an example of this phenomenon, to wit,
Mark 5.25-28 (emphasis mine):

And there was a woman who had had a flow of blood for
twelve years, and who had suffered much under many physicians,
and had spent all that she had, and was no better but rather grew
worse. She had heard the reports about Jesus, and came up behind
him in the crowd and touched his garment. For she said:
If I touch even his garments, I shall be made well.

Turton remarks:

The "For..." signals the beginning of a new
bracket.

And, true to form, at that part of the text of Mark he has
two separate brackets, divided at the word for (Greek
γαρ).

But do we not have much the same situation in Mark 1.16? Turton
has the whole verse as a single bracket (emphasis mine):

And while he was going about by the sea of Galilee
he saw Simon and Andrew the brother of Simon casting about in the
sea. For they were fishers.

The for in Mark 1.16 backtracks to explain
why the brothers were casting into the sea of Galilee, just as the
for in Mark 5.28 backtracks to explain why the woman was
touching the garments of Jesus. Why then do we not make two
brackets of Mark 1.16? But to do so, of course, would spoil the
symmetry, since the second half of the passage offers no such
explanation for James and John as the first half offers for
Simon and Andrew. Perhaps rule 9 is more Turtonian than Marcan.

Furthermore, many times those brackets that belong neither to
the center nor to the seam of the chiasm seem weakly connected.
Let me offer Mark 11.11-27 as an example. It consists of three
distinct chiasms:

A And he went into Jerusalem,
into the temple; and when he had looked around at everything,
as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve. And the
next day, when they had gone out of Bethany, he grew hungry.

B1 And he saw a fig tree
from afar which had leaves, and he came to see if he might find anything
on it.

C1 And he came up to it
and found nothing except leaves; for it was not the season for
figs.

C2 And he answered and said to it: May no one ever eat fruit from you unto the age.

B2 And his disciples
heard him.

A And they came to Jerusalem.

B1 And he entered the temple
and began to drive out those who sold and those who bought in the temple.

C1 And he overturned the tables
of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons.

D1 And he would not allow
any one to carry anything through the temple.

D2 And he taught, and said
to them: Is it not written: My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations? But you have made it a den of robbers.

C2 And the chief priests and the scribes heard it and sought a way to destroy him.

B2 For they feared him,
because all the multitude was astonished at his teaching.

A And when it became evening
they journeyed out of the city.

B1 And, as they were
journeying along early, they saw the fig tree withered up from the roots.

C1 And Peter was reminded
and says to him: Rabbi, behold, the fig tree which you cursed has withered
up.

C2 And Jesus answered and says
to them: Have the faith of God. Amen, I say to you that whoever says to this
mountain: Be taken up and cast into the sea, and does not doubt in his heart,
but has faith that what he says will happen, it will be so for him.

B2 On account of this I say to
you, all things, as many as you pray and ask for, have faith that you have
received them, and it will be so for you. And, whenever you stand praying,
forgive if you have anything against anyone, so that your father also who
is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.

A And they come again into
Jerusalem.

Now, Turton admits that he has difficulty with the first
chiasm in this portion of text, and that is to his credit, for
it is unclear how his first A bracket does not violate
rule 10:

Where a verse involves a movement from one place to
another, positing an interval of time between, a new bracket is
demanded.

The A bracket in question runs as
follows:

And he went into Jerusalem,
into the temple; and when he had looked around at everything,
as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.
And the next day, when they had gone out of Bethany, he grew
hungry.

This bracket looks like two or even three in one. Into the
temple in Jerusalem is the first part; out to Bethany is the second
part; and from Bethany on the next day is the third part. Each
of these transitions involves a movement from one place to
another with some interval of time between, and therefore
demands, according to rule 10, a new bracket. Yet Turton has
them all in one.

Moreover, I am not certain that the B brackets in each
chiasm serve any real function besides getting us from the seam
to the center. Here is the first pair of B brackets:

And he saw a fig tree from afar which had leaves, and he came
to see if he might find anything on it.

And his disciples heard him.

What is the connection? Is it seeing against hearing? That seems
weak. It looks like almost any passage from any author could be
constructed chiastically with a standard of relation as slight as
this. And make no mistake, some good might come from such an endeavor
with other authors, but I do not think that it would have anything
to do with discerning the mind of the author. But at least these
two appear to fare better than the next pair of B
brackets:

And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who
sold and those who bought in the temple.

For they feared him, because all the multitude was astonished
at his teaching.

I for one fail to see what these two lines have so in common that
they belong in corresponding brackets. If these two lines fit into
the same bracket pair, virtually any two lines will fit into
the same bracket pair. The process seems arbitrary at times. Here
is the last pair of B brackets:

And, as they were journeying along early, they saw the fig
tree withered up from the roots.

On account of this I say to you, all things, as many as you
pray and ask for, have faith that you have received them, and it will
be so for you. And, whenever you stand praying, forgive if you
have anything against anyone, so that your father also who is
in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.

I can see the general relationship between the withered fig tree
and faith, but I cannot see why these two particular lines share in
that relationship any more intrinsically than any pair of
lines from this pericope. The following combinations seem just as
fit to me:

And, as they were journeying along early, they saw the fig
tree withered up from the roots.

And Jesus answered and says to them: Have the faith of God.
Amen, I say to you that whoever says to this mountain: Be taken
up and cast into the sea, and does not doubt in his heart, but
has faith that what he says will happen, it will be so for him.

And Peter was reminded and says to him: Rabbi, behold, the
fig tree which you cursed has withered up.

On account of this I say to you, all things, as many as you
pray and ask for, believe that you have received them, and it will
be so for you. And, whenever you stand praying, forgive if you
have anything against anyone, so that your father also who is
in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.

Both of these pairs correlate faith with the withered tree just
as the original pairs do, but both of these pairs cross B
with C brackets. The only purpose for these brackets appears
to be connecting the seams with the center. As such, the brackets
themselves look arbitrary.

To be fair, there are indeed times when the corresponding brackets
match almost eerily. Take Mark 3.20-31a, for instance:

A1 And
then he went into a house, and the crowd came together again, so that
they could not even eat.

B1 And when his family
heard it, they went out to seize him, for people were saying: He is
beside himself.

C1 And the scribes who
came down from Jerusalem said: He is possessed by Beelzebub, and by
the prince of demons he casts out the demons.

C2 And he called them to him,
and said to them in parables: How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom
is divided against itself, that kingdom is unable to stand. And if a house
is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if
Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he is not able to stand,
but is coming to an end. But no one can enter the house of a strong man
and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man; then indeed he
may plunder his house. Truly I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the
sons of men, and whatever blasphemies they utter; but whoever blasphemes
against the holy spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an
eternal sin.

B2 Because they had said:
He has an unclean spirit.

A2 And his mother and his
brothers came.

While I am a little put off by the relative brevity of
C1 as compared to the length of
C2, the B brackets are a fine fit; the
accusation of having an unclean spirit responds to Jesus allegedly
being beside himself. Furthermore, Mark had to go out of his way to
create this echo, using one of his most awkward explanations after
the fact (since the accusation would logically precede the long
demonological speech that Jesus delivers). So there are some
cases in which Mark appears to be striving for some structure akin
to what Turton presents us. I am just not convinced that Mark
always strives for these kinds of structures, or that Turton
has completely pegged the Marcan repertoire.

Let me at this juncture remind the reader of rule
5:

Speeches, regardless of length, must be single brackets,
so long as they are one speech directed at one audience.

Let me also remind the reader that rule 6 allows
an exception to that rule:

Speeches may be broken up if there there appears
to be a natural demarcation between two parts, when the audience
has shifted. This typically takes place when there is a shift
from an address to persons present in the narrative, to a
general saying, often signaled by a formula like "Truly I say"
or "But I tell you...."

Finally, let me call attention to Mark 14.41-42:

And he came the third time and said to them:
Are you still sleeping and taking your rest? It is enough;
the hour has come. The son of man is betrayed into the hands
of sinners.

Rise; let us be going. Behold, my betrayer is at
hand.

Turton divides this monologue across two brackets, but do
rules 5 and 6 allow it? There is no change of audience, is
there? Both halves appear to be directed specifically at
the disciples; neither is a general statement directed at
the Marcan readership. There is certainly no but or
truly I say to you kind of statement to mark off the
new bracket for us.

It appears to me that either these two rules are poorly worded
or we have a genuine exception to these two rules. Conversely,
we have already seen an example of a bracket that could
have been broken in two at the words truly I say to
you. I refer to Mark 3.23-29, which Turton has as one bracket
(emphasis mine):

And he called them to him,
and said to them in parables: How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom
is divided against itself, that kingdom is unable to stand. And if a house
is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if
Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he is not able to stand,
but is coming to an end. But no one can enter the house of a strong man
and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man; then indeed he
may plunder his house. Truly I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the
sons of men, and whatever blasphemies they utter; but whoever blasphemes
against the holy spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an
eternal sin.

While rule 6, worded permissively, allows us to divide this speech
at the shift, in this case to do so would not work. Such flexibility,
along with the ability to either break or reinterpret the rules,
gives the impression that we could have made a chiasm work
here almost no matter what was thrown at us.

I cannot offer any examples against rule 4
(emphasis mine):

Actions may constitute separate
brackets.

This rule is worded permissively, not restrictively. In other
words, it tells us what we as literary critics are allowed to do,
but does not compel us to do so. A permissive rule allows of
exceptions which do not have to be spelled out.

Nor can I offer examples against rule 7
(emphasis mine):

Actions plus speeches may be a
bracket.

It too is worded permissively, not restrictively.

Rule 8 is worded restrictively (emphasis mine):

Actions plus speech followed by actions/descriptions
are never a separate bracket.

And Mark 11.31-32 may break the rule:

And they argued with one another: If we say from heaven
he will say: Why then did you not believe him? But shall we say
from men? They feared the people, for all held that John
was a real prophet.

The first action is arguing with one another. Then we have
speech between the opponents of Jesus. Then the second action
is fearing the people. (If it be argued that fearing the
people is really not a separate action, but rather an explanation
of the previous dialogue, then this bracket would seem to violate
rule 9: When the text turns back on itself, usually by way of
explanation, a new bracket is indicated.)

Pericope centers.

Rule 2: All Marcan chiasms have twinned centers. Many of the
centers contain more complex a-b-b-a,
a-b-a-b, or a-b-c-a-b-c
structures.

In rule 2 Turton deals with what he calls his
complex Marcan centers. His structures always have doubled
centers; accordingly, he would claim that the sample chiasm that I
identified in Matthew 8.14b-15 could not be Marcan, since it has only
a single center. If it were Marcan, according to Turton, it would have
had C1 and C2, not C
by itself.

Furthermore, each of the paired center brackets can often be
broken down even further within themselves to reveal other complex
patterns. On this page I will mark those subbrackets, as it were,
with lowercase letters (a, b, c). It is
interesting to note that two of the three principal patterns that
Turton identifies for these more complex centers are nonchiastic.
The chiastic center is a-b-b-a; the nonchiastic
centers are a-b-a-b and
a-b-c-a-b-c. This allowance would
seem to provide for quite a bit of flexibility at the heart of
the chiastic structure:

All Markan chiasms have twinned centers. Many of the
centers contain more complex ABBA, ABAB, or ABCABC
structures.

I offer Mark 1.14-21a as an example of this flexibility:

A1 But
after John had been delivered up Jesus came into Galilee preaching
the gospel of God, and said: The time is fulfilled and the kingdom
of God has drawn near. Repent and believe in the gospel.

B1 —

a And while he was
going about by the sea of Galilee he saw Simon and Andrew the
brother of Simon casting about in the sea. For they were
fishers.

b And Jesus said
to them: Come after me, and I will make you to be fishers of
men.

c And, straightway
leaving the nets behind, they followed him.

B2 —

a And he passed on a
little farther and saw James of Zebedee and John his brother,
and they were in the boat mending the nets.

b And straightway he
called them.

c And they left their
father Zebedee in the boat with the hirelings and went after
him.

A2 And he journeyed
into Capernaum.

I rather think that Turton has nailed the structure of this
passage. Surely Mark intended to match the callings of the two
sets of brothers point for point. But this structure is not actually
a chiasm in any way, except for the fact that the seams both
entail movement (into Galilee in A1, into
Capernaum in A2), and I have already indicated
my approval of how Turton treats the pericope seams. But the heart
and indeed greater part of the passage is utterly nonchiastic.
The a-b-a-b and a-b-c-a-b-c
options look very much to me like tacit admissions that Mark does
not really aim for chiasms.

But let us run with the rules at any rate. Perhaps they apply
across the board in Mark even if labelling them chiastic
is not always apt. Let us peruse an example of a more chiastic center
in Mark 6.1-6 as Turton would have it:

A1 And he
came out thence, and he came unto his fatherland, and his disciples
followed him.

B1 And when it was
sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue. And many who heard were
amazed, saying:

C1 Whence did these
things come to this man, and what is this wisdom given to him and
such powers done through his hands?

D1 —

a Is this not the
carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas
and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?

b And they were
scandalized at him.

D2 —

b And Jesus said to
them: A prophet is not dishonored....

a ...except in his
fatherland and among his kinsmen and in his house.

C2 And he could not
do any powerful feats there except that he laid hands upon a few
sick and healed them.

B2 And he wondered
on account of their unbelief.

A2 And he was going
around the villages in a circle, teaching.

Note that D1 and D2 each
have two subbrackets, a and b. I want to point out
that these subbrackets do have a logic to them. The a
brackets have to do with family relationships; the b
brackets oppose scandal with honor. These relationships seem
far from arbitrary, and appear to strike at the heart of the
message of this Marcan passage.

It is only fair to note, however, that a Marcan scholar by the
name of John Dart has written a book called Decoding Mark in which he analyzes the gospel
chiastically and determines that Mark never has doubled
centers. Here then is Mark 6.1-6 as Dart would have it:

A1 And he
came out thence, and he came unto his fatherland, and his disciples
followed him. And when it was sabbath he began to teach in the
synagogue. And many who heard were amazed, saying: Whence did these
things come to this man, and what is this wisdom given to
him....

B1 ...and such powers
done through his hands?

C1 Is this not the
carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas
and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?

D And they were
scandalized at him.

C2 And Jesus said
to them: A prophet is not dishonored except in his fatherland
and among his kinsmen and in his house.

B2 And he could
not do any powerful feats there except that he laid hands upon
a few sick and healed them.

A2 And he wondered
on account of their unbelief. And he was going around the villages
in a circle, teaching.

Note the rather different structure at the heart of the chiasm.
I want to point out that the central brackets do have a logic to them.
The D bracket is the turning point of the whole pericope;
the C brackets have to do with family relationships and also
oppose carpenter with prophet as the true profession
of Jesus. These relationships seem far from arbitrary, and appear to
strike at the heart of the message of this Marcan passage.

In other words, two chiastically incompatible systems (one with
doubled centers and the other without) produce two different
yet logical patterns. Of course, Turton misses the correspondence
of carpenter and prophet, while Dart misses the
correspondence of scandal and honor.

It is important to realize that each of our analysts must
miss at least one of these correspondences, for the brute fact is
that Mark has arranged these important points in two different orders
at the center of his pericope. The first sequence is carpenter,
family, scandal; the second sequence is prophet,
honor, kin. If we were to match the elements by
letter we would have a-b-c and a-c-b. Turton and Dart
have both taken care to line up family and kin, but then
each had to make a choice as to which of the other matching pairs was
going to stay, and which was going to go.

Note that not even a nonchiastic a-b-a-b or
a-b-c-a-b-c center can save this anomaly. The
only possible solution is to combine b and c into a
single bracket and try for a pattern of a-b-a-b.
But it comes out looking like so:

a Is this
not the carpenter....

b ...the son of Mary
and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And are not his
sisters here with us? And they were scandalized at him.

a And Jesus said to
them: A prophet....

b ...is not dishonored
except in his fatherland and among his kinsmen and in his
house.

Truly awkward, and very rough on the dialogue in ways that seem
inconsistent with rules 5 and 6.

Had Mark really been thinking in terms of a good chiasm he could
surely have worked all this out! But he did not, leading me to
suspect that he was not necessarily trying to create a chiasm,
at least not of the particular variety that Turton suggests in
his rules.

Appendix.

Josephan chiasms.

It would weaken the chiastic thesis somewhat if one could apply
the same or very similar rules to authors other than Mark and
come up with chiastic structures. In what follows I have tried
to arrange passages from Josephus into chiasms. I have had to
change only rule number 3, since Josephus, not writing about an
itinerant preacher in particular, does not tend to connect his
paragraphs with movement from one locale to the next. Rather,
his connections are changes from one political event to the next,
or from one crisis to the next.

Read the following chiasms, then, and decide for yourself
whether they are logical. Then decide whether you think Josephus
intended to write chiastically like this, and whether
Mark and Josephus were following the same plan (since one of
the passages below uses a doubled center).

Josephus, Antiquities
18.4.1 §85-87:

A1 But the
nation of the Samaritans did not escape without tumults. The man
who excited them to it was one who thought lying a thing of little
consequence, and who contrived every thing so that the multitude
might be pleased.

B1 So he bid them get
together upon Mount Gerizzim, which is by them looked upon as the
most holy of all mountains, and assured them that, when they were
come thither, he would show them those sacred vessels which were
laid under that place, because Moses put them there.

C1 So they came thither
armed, and thought the discourse of the man probable; and as they
abode at a certain village which was called Tirathaba they got the
rest together to them, and desired to go up the mountain in a great
multitude together.

C2 But Pilate prevented
their going up by seizing upon file roads with a great band of
horsemen and footmen. He fell upon those that had gotten together
in the village.

B2 And when it came
to an action some of them they slew, and others of them they put to
flight.

A2 And they took a
great many alive, the principal of which, and also the most potent
of those that fled away, Pilate ordered to be slain.

The A brackets oppose the rebel Samaritan leader with
the official Roman leader, Pilate, and also enclose the whole
episode in a political context. The B brackets contrast
coming together with being put to flight. The C brackets
are action and reaction in turn, and also center wholly around
what took place at the village.

I submit that this chiasm is at least as well constructed and
logical as very many that Turton identifies in his study.

Josephus, Antiquities
20.5.1 §97-99:

A1 Now it
came to pass while Fadus was procurator of Judea....

B1 ...that a certain
enchanter, whose name was Theudas, persuaded a great part of the
people to take their effects with them and follow him to the river
Jordan.

C1 —

a For he told them
that he was a prophet, and that he would by his own command
divide the river, and afford them an easy passage over it.

b And many were
deluded by his words.

C2 —

a However, Fadus
did not permit them to make any advantage of his wild attempt,
but sent a troop of horsemen out against them.

b Falling upon them
unexpectedly, he slew many of them and took many of them alive.

B2 They also took
Theudas alive, and cut off his head and carried it to Jerusalem.

A2 This was what
befell the Jews in the time of the leadership of Cuspius
Fadus.

This chiasm is fascinating to me because it employs one of the
two nonchiastic complex centers that Turton allows. Was Josephus
as quirky as Mark?

Cuspius Fadus dominates the A brackets. Theudas occupies
the B brackets, which respectively summarize his attempt and
his failure. The C brackets form the center. The a
subbrackets turn a prophetic act into a wild attempt. The b
subbrackets turn many deluded into many slain.

Are we tapping into the thoughts of Mark or Josephus? Or are we
getting a bit too creative as literary critics? Iudicet lector;
let the reader judge.